Engine Fan Options???

My engine cooling fan motor has given up the ghost. As long as I’m replacing it, are there any upgrade options I can look for? Blade wise or motor wise? It’s a 5 speed ‘96 B4V.

All I can offer is that the B4 fans are larger than the A3 fans.

I don’t remember if the main or aux failed on mine, but I installed a A3 fan and didn’t see any cooling issues. The blades may be glued on, because I destroyed them trying to swap them.

I found the proper replacement, but never bothered to swap them. That was years ago and still no cooling issues.

-Todd

I have always favored electric fans from amazon and a custom shroud. Then again you could just replace the motor on the fan.

The cooling fan motor on the VR6 cars are larger and IIRC are three speed units. For some reason I think VW lists them as 450 watt fans. Unfortunately the TDI cars lack the sensor (and wiring) that supports the high speed for the six cylinder type fans.

I actually have the VR6 fan installed but I had to revise the wiring to make it work. While I had the wiring to support it from a VR car the tdi lacks sufficient sensor bungs to accommodate the added sensor to control it the highest speed.

If you just want a replacement I would find a good used 4 cylinder Mk3 fan motor, it should be the same as that on the B4 tdi. Either that or find a complete replacement fan assembly for the B4.

Also, it would be a good time to replace the small belt that controls the second fan.

Steve

3 speed fan from the VR6? I remember I had one and it only had 3 terminals, which led me to believe it was a 2 speed fan.

The plug was oval and I didn’t want to cut my harness, so I never used it.

-Todd

ToddA1 said:

3 speed fan from the VR6? I remember I had one and it only had 3 terminals, which led me to believe it was a 2 speed fan.

The plug was oval and I didn’t want to cut my harness, so I never used it.

-Todd

Click to expand...

I figured it out from the Passat manual and checked out / compared the wiring for fans from all three (VR6, tdi and 4 cylinder gas ABA) models to see exactly where the differences were. That's how I figured out how to wire around the high speed sensor deletion.

IIRC the manual references them based on the wattage etc, I will take a pic of the connector at the fan, it's probably the one you're talking about but I don't recall it being oval but more like an 8.

I used this fan because they were much easier to come by versus the tdi / 4 cylinder gas cars and because eventually I was going to try and add the cooling flange at the cylinder head that has the added bung for the temp sensor to control the high speed. At present the wires are just buried in the harness wrapping.

EDIT: It could also be that you need to use the FCM from a VR car. I can't remember whether I got that with the harness or not but I'll bet I did. The FCM for VR has additional fuse I think.

Steve